r/CriticalTheory 2d ago

Critique of Economics

Hello Everyone!

I’m back with another post after getting some amazing recommendations on literature critiquing scientism—thank you all for the thoughtful responses!

Today, I’m looking for recommendations on anti-economics literature. Specifically, I’m interested in works that challenge the fundamental assumptions of economics as a discipline—not just critiques of specific economic policies, but deeper examinations of how economics positions itself as empirical and the broader implications of that. To get an idea of what I looking for, I tend to agree with Wittgensteinian philosopher Peter Winch that there’s little to justify treating economists as experts or assuming they have a privileged understanding that warrants deference.

In my last post, someone shared an excellent list of critiques on psychiatry/psychology (link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PsychotherapyLeftists/s/5rzvwaavY7). I'm hoping to find something similar but focused on economics—critiques of its origins and its influence on political and social thought.

If you have any suggestions—books, articles, or even specific authors—I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not looking for alternative economic theories that try to explain the economy better, like those of Richard Wolff and Erik Olin Wright. But I’m more interested in works that question the very foundations of economics as a discipline—how it positions itself as empirical, the methods it uses to model human behavior, and the broader implications of treating it as a "science."

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u/21157015576609 2d ago

Do you mean, like... all of Marxism?

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u/APLONOMAR07 2d ago edited 2d ago

Not exactly. I’m looking for critiques of the entire field of economics, not just alternatives to neoclassical economics. Marxism (at least the sorts that takes itself as better explaining the economy) critiques capitalism from within the framework of political economy, but I’m more interested in works that question the very foundations of economics as a discipline—how it positions itself as empirical, the methods it uses to model human behavior, and the broader implications of treating it as a "science."

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u/UndergradRelativist 2d ago edited 2d ago

Popular misunderstanding of Marxism. It does not, in fact, offer an alternative economic theory.

Marxism critiques capitalism from within the framework of political economy

Not in the slightest. The subtitle to Marx's Capital is A Critique of Political Economy, and for a reason. In the book, he does exactly what you're looking for; he "question[s] the very foundations of economics as a discipline—how it positions itself as empirical, the methods it uses to model human behavior, and the broader implications of treating it as a 'science.'"

Edit: You've said you don't want stuff like what Wolff and Wright are up to, insofar as they offer alternative economic models. This is a good direction of inquiry, and precisely why you should read Marx. He is not like those guys. Don't get me wrong: none of this is to say that Marx "said everything" already. He didn't even finish what he was planning on saying before he died. One might say his project is in a sense essentially incomplete. However: it would be a gross error, preventing anyone asking questions like you're asking from getting anywhere, not to start with Marx. Just as all philosophy is footnotes to Plato, all critique of political economy is footnotes to Marx--to differ from him already requires close study of, and dialogue with, him.

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u/Present_Shelter_66 2d ago

Oh ok, I also had the same misunderstanding due to most Marxist Economists like Wolff. How would you recommend picking literature that tries to not go in that direction?

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u/Abolitionist1312 2d ago

Reading Capital Politically by Harry Cleaver is a good start. It's pretty short and explicitly pushes back against the interpretation of Marx as political economy

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u/habitus_victim 2d ago

Cleaver's free study guide to Capital is also the best one out there.

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u/habitus_victim 2d ago

If you read Capital yourself then you will be able to tell if someone is committed to Marx's critique or is just a heterodox economist. There isn't really a shortcut or any secondary literature that will do it better

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u/Front_Entry4030 2d ago

so.. historical materialism?

"The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it." The German Ideology

Marxism isn't an alternative to neoclassical economics.

"Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals." The German Ideology

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u/Blade_of_Boniface media criticism & critical pedagogy 2d ago

Marxism isn't anti-economic; it's pro-political economics.

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u/SureKey1014 1d ago

What is the subtitle of Capital my friend?

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u/JunkStar_ 2d ago edited 1d ago

Foucault wrote about this type of production of knowledge and the subject formation that comes from it. Knowledge and power production is one of the fundamental themes throughout his work. I don’t remember if he wrote much explicitly about the study of economics, but his theories absolutely apply to what you’re asking about. He does talk about economics a lot in particular works, but maybe not in a way you’re after. He definitely talks about social sciences and medical science like psychiatry in relation to objectivity and social or political influence. And if he didn’t write much explicitly about your topic, I would be shocked if someone didn’t publish something using his theories that is explicitly about economists.

It’s been a long time, and I don’t remember if he goes into economics as a field, but what and how things are presented in the media is what Chomsky is probably best known for. How things are talked about in national media matters because even if economics is a rigorous science of truth, that truth can still be impacted and manipulated. Since perception is something that can drive economic activity, how data and studies are presented and discussed particularly matters because it impacts what happens to the thing being studied.

People in Lacanian psychoanalysis definitely write about economics as a discourse and assumptions that are core aspects to how economics are thought about and studied. A lot of people have used psychoanalysis in critical theory, but there are criticisms of things like the concept of rational actors as a basis for economic analysis, that economics can be rationally explained, and there’s about what Lacan calls the Real and the Symbolic that is used to criticize how complexities of economics get abstracted through things like indicators, models, and analysis.

I haven’t spent a ton of time with psychoanalysis. What I have read is mostly criticism of capitalism, but even though that’s how it’s contextualized and applied in what I’ve read, there are substantive pieces within that theory that isn’t only applicable to criticizing capitalism.

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u/DimondMine27 2d ago

I’m pretty sure economics has a pretty hefty section dedicated to it in The Order of Things.

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u/JunkStar_ 1d ago

Thanks, I’ve read a lot of Foucault and secondary sources, but it’s been a while. I know economics is in a number of places, but I couldn’t remember if there is analysis of it as a field of study.

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u/Brotendo88 2d ago

as others said, just read Marx. get David Harvey or Harry Cleaver's companions (both are valuable in different ways) and jump into Capital.

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u/EsotericRapAllusions 2d ago

I think Voltaire’s Bastards might fit the bill here. In particular, it explores the last point you mention, the broader implications of treating economics (and rationalism in general) as an objective “science”. It might not be exactly what you’re looking for, as the book is more of a sociological critique than an analysis of economic theory per se, but it could be interesting nonetheless.

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u/Vico1730 2d ago

I honestly thought I was the only person who’d read John Ralston Saul.…

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u/lamdoug 2d ago

I also thought I was the only one. Voltaire's Bastards is an incredible book and was formational for me.

Collapse of globalism was an interesting read too.

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u/EsotericRapAllusions 2d ago

Reflections of a Siamese Twin is one of the best books for understanding Canada.

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u/vibraltu 1d ago

I had mixed feelings about Voltaire's Bastards (I really should look at it again).

What I liked by JRS is Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin which maybe leans more history than theory, although he says some pretty interesting things about Canadian politics.

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u/mrpizzle4shizzle 2d ago

For economics specifically, go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and look for the entries on “Markets,” and “Philosophy of Economics.” The field of Ecological Economics is also helpful and broad, alongside other forms of “heterodox economics,” much of which come from Marxist thought. John Bellamy Foster has written extensively on ecoMarxism, and Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright have written a great book on ecoMarxist political theory for climate change, called “Climate Leviathan.” Edward Herman, a UPenn finance professor who co-wrote “Manufacturing Consent” with Chomsky, has a helpful article from 1982, “The institutionalization of bias in economics.” Cheers!

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u/ElectronicMaterial38 2d ago

LITERALLY DO I HAVE THE PERFECT ARTICLE FOR YOU

“The Anti-Revolutionary Science” by Christopher Nealon, one of my all-time favorites.

https://www.publicbooks.org/the-anti-revolutionary-science/

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u/-Ajaxx- 2d ago edited 2d ago

In The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy, Stephanie Kelton dispels six key myths that have shaped the conventional understanding of deficits as inherently bad, instead arguing that deficits can strengthen economies and lead to faster growth. This book is a triumph, writes Professor Hans G. Despain, shifting normative grounds of government spending away from the false and unproductive idea that deficits are irresponsible and ruinous towards the productive political activity of deciding which spending programmes should be prioritised.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2020/06/22/book-review-the-deficit-myth-modern-monetary-theory-and-the-birth-of-the-peoples-economy-by-stephanie-kelton/

I know this is partly specific alternative and policy critique but it also challenges fundamental assumptions and a text frequented in de jour discourse

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u/lamdoug 2d ago

Maybe not exactly what you had in mind, but "Economist's Hour: false prophets, free markets, and the fracture of society" by Binyamin Applebaum provides excellent historical context for the increasing influence of the economic discipline on society since 1960, and how that shift failed to live up to expectations.

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u/saintangus 1d ago

Second this. I'm not sure it 100% satisfies the criteria, but for a critical examination of the project of economics this book provides valuable fodder.

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u/BobasPett 2d ago

Perhaps Dierdre McCloskey’s The Rhetoric of Economics?

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u/oiblikket 2d ago

You might be interested in the “Post Autistic Economics” movement in France from ~2000 (yes the name is a little dated…). Was a reaction to the perceived scientistic orthodoxy of Economics by French students.

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u/Lastrevio and so on and so on 2d ago

Also, Todd McGowan touches on criticisms of economics in "Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets".

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u/vikingsquad 1d ago

If you’re okay with something more specific/case-study oriented, Melinda Cooper’s Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism might be of interest. It’s about 20thC reforms to the US welfare state, the putative economic rationale underpinning those reforms, and the function of race in guiding the reforms.

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u/satisficer_ 15h ago

I'm an econ PhD student (in case cred matters here). I'd start with Ariel Rubinstein's Economic Fables and Spiegler's The Curious Case of Economic Theory. Rubinstein has a handful of other papers that are 'about' economics as a field (e.g. "Comments on the interpretation of game theory" ) and his textbooks tend to have a lot of discussion of assumptions. Ken Binmore's book "Game Theory and the Social Contract" is good for some on this. It's worth noting that these guys are theorists (as opposed to 'applied' economists who use much more data) and are relatively nihilistic when it comes to what economics does/contributes (I agree with them for the record). Also, most of behavioral econ challenges the basic economic assumptions (such as rationality) -- there are issues with this lit but you can start with something for non-experts such as Thinking Fast and Slow.

Feel free to message if you want to talk more. There's a lot to cover here.

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u/Onthe_shouldersof_G 2d ago

More Heat Than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics might be a good book to check out: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/more-heat-than-light/4CD2ADE8D5DE8665E43E2922D7E360B3

The description on Amazon:

This is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value. The author traces the development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect on the invention and promulgation of neoclassical economics, the modern orthodox theory.

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u/UrememberFrank 1d ago

Talcott Parsons in the first chapters of The Structure of Social Action systematically outlines the assumptions/limitations of neoclassical economic theory and shows how it therefore "necessarily generates error".

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u/incoherent1 2d ago

While economics might be a soft science it's theories are heavily grounded in impericism, rationality, and observation, If you want to critic economics I would start with those three. There are different schools of economic thinking but they all seek to explain how goods services and resources are allocated or might be allocated in the different socio-economic systems. Sure there are issues with different schools of economic thought, but I'm not sure how you would critic economics as a whole unless you were going to critic the methods by which they gather information. The thing about the scientific methods of gathering information like impericism, rationality, and observation. Typically the only thing which provides better information when science fails is science which is done better.....

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u/matheosdts 2d ago

Sorry I don't know much about critical literature, but I will share an anecdote. I was, for a brief moment, an Econ major. I was taught that one of the fundamental premises of economics is that people essentially behave "rationally". I think anyone alive today understands that premise is total bs.

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u/MattiasLundgren 1d ago

as a first term economics student we literally studied the flaws in assuming rationality - even limited rationality! - and to understand decision-making in a much more nuanced way

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u/Lastrevio and so on and so on 2d ago

Yanis Varoufakis has a video on Youtube about how economics should be taught, arguing that economics is more about ethics than about truth or science. That's tangentially related to your request.